Month: September 2002

Colombian community leaders Alirio Arroyave and Arquimedes Vitonas were in Toronto last month to give talks, part of the Canada-Colombia Solidarity Campaign. rabble interviewer Justin Podur caught up with both men during their stay and spoke with them about participatory politics, direct democracy and what can happen when the people making the decisions are also the people affected by them.

Two years ago, just after Vicente Fox’s election ended the PRI’s 71-year long dictatorship over Mexico and just before Pablo Salazar’s election as governor of Chiapas raised such high hopes of change, there was a literacy class in the Tzotzil, Abeja refugee community of X’oyep in the Altos.

The teachers, young urban university students from northern Mexico had given their students the assignment of writing a single page composition, on any topic they chose.

What happened in Jenin? What is happening in Jenin? The second question is more important than the first, but the two are related. With the United Nations report on Jenin published and the Human Rights Watch Report tabled some time ago, the official voices have spoken.